


Now You're Singing with a Swing

by forthegreatergood



Series: My Best Girl [5]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 02:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy's hiding a man in her room, and Angie probably shouldn't find it quite so funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now You're Singing with a Swing

**Author's Note:**

> All characters property of Marvel.
> 
> Not beta-read. Please post any noticed errors in the comments, and they'll get fixed.

Angie rolled her eyes, turned over, and punched her pillow irritably. It was almost no use trying to get comfortable, and it wasn’t the bed’s fault. She’d been too tired to stay awake at work, so she’d had too much coffee to turn in once she got home. Then she’d figured out that Peggy hadn’t come home all night, and she’d been too worried and jittery to sleep. Now she had to listen to Lorraine of all people whooping it up with some guy at the crack of dawn. She’d tried earmuffs at first, but there was something about Lorraine’s voice that cut right through the insulation. Angie thought it was funny that she hadn’t heard anything earlier, and even funnier that Lorraine had managed to sneak somebody past Miriam. She wouldn’t have thought Lorraine had it in her after what had happened with Molly. 

Another burst of giggling sounded through the thin walls, and Angie figured the guy must be a regular comedian at this rate. She tried to concentrate on the dog-eared copy of Forever Amber that Carol had scared up for her. So far, she wasn’t sure what the cardinals were getting so excited about, but then again she hadn’t taken a vow of celibacy. She really wanted to read Leave Her to Heaven, but Carol had loaned her copy to Molly, and the poor thing had been too shook up when she left to remember it wasn’t hers.

Angie about jumped out of her skin when the pounding started. She couldn’t tell if it was the police or somebody trying to break the door down. It stopped after three bangs, though, so probably not either of them. The mad rustle of clothes and whispering voices that followed left no doubt it had been Lorraine’s door.

“Yes?” Lorraine asked. Angie got out of bed, her book forgotten. Why Lorraine would open the door after somebody knocked like that, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t seem too bright to her. Then again, the door was muffling her voice enough that she couldn’t tell if Lorraine was playing angry or innocent. “You just woke me.”

“Not to worry!” 

A man’s voice, this time, and Angie started. Was Lorraine out of her mind? It was one thing to slip a guy in through the window or under the door or call him up out of thin air, but letting him announce himself to the world? 

“This is my cousin, Peggy. Peggy, Lorraine.”

Peggy. Peggy was back, after being out all night. Peggy had snuck a man into the Griffith, after all. Peggy had snuck in a man, and now he was playing at being her cousin after getting caught with Lorraine. Well, hot damn. Angie crept to the door and grabbed a glass. She pressed the cup against the wood and put her ear to it. She felt like something of a snoop not just opening the door and seeing what all the fuss was about, but it already sounded like a party out there. If Miriam caught wind of it, they’d all be out on the street.

“Don’t you think your cousin looks just like Howard Stark?” Lorraine asked, not even bothering to be quiet. Angie bit her lip and willed Lorraine to pipe down a little.

“My cousin is a lot shorter.” Definitely Peggy, and she didn’t sound the least bit amused.

“And much better looking,” the man protested. “Come on, Peg. We got family business to discuss.”

“See ya,” Lorraine stage-whispered.

Heavy footsteps--Peggy sounded almost like she was stomping--and a roughly-closed door told Angie that she’d either have to knock on Peggy’s door to find out what was up or figure out a really good excuse for listening from the hall. She decided to risk it. Angie pulled on her dressing gown and slipped out of her room. If Peggy caught her, she’d say she’d heard shouting and was worried. Peggy had tolerated her being pretty nosey before, she might be forgiving of it now. And if not, she could play jealous now, couldn’t she? A few nights of kissing and eating take-out from someplace she didn’t work at and dancing to the radio in her living room wasn’t exactly moving in together, but it wasn’t nothing, either. She chewed her lip and hovered near the jamb, listening.

She couldn’t hear what was being said, but from the rhythm of Peggy’s voice rising and falling, she sounded sharp and angry. Not I-just-caught-my-man-with-another-woman angry. Angry like he might really be her jackass cousin after all. 

Angie listened long enough to tell that she wasn’t going to learn anything more, then padded back to her own place. She closed the door gently enough that the only sound was the latch clicking. Peggy hadn’t mentioned anything about expecting a cousin, and he’d sounded American, not English. Angie’s lips pursed. Maybe not really her cousin, then. But not her fella, either, if she didn’t have anything to say about him making time with some girl he’d just met that she lived across the hall from. And Angie liked to think she’d have heard about a guy by now, too. Never mind that she didn’t think anyone Peggy’d go with would be stupid enough to pull a stunt like that right in front of her.

Angie kicked off her slippers and stripped off the dressing gown and tried to make sense of the situation. The guy had to have some nerve if he was sweet-talking his way into a strange woman’s bedroom at this hour, though she was sure looking like Howard Stark helped. 

Being handsome never hurt when it came to getting a favor out of a lonely girl, and Lorraine’s fella had gone off to fight and never made it home. Angie had thought it was pretty awful until Carol had clarified that he was still alive; he’d just decided he like France better and emigrated once he got discharged. More to the point, he’d decided he liked a Résistance spy who could kill a man with her bare hands and cook a mean soufflé and not bat an eye at shacking up with a guy less than a week after she’d met him better than he liked long boat rides and Lorraine. Lorraine had settled on playing it off like her fiancé had been lost in the war rather than let on that she was a divorcée at twenty-three.

She could grill Lorraine about what the Stark look-alike had been up to later, she supposed. Now that she knew Peggy was back safe and sound, half her nervous energy seemed to have deserted her.

*****

“Where are you now?” Peggy’s loud, imperious demand startled Angie so bad she almost dropped her book.

A door creaked open in the hall, and Angie stared at her own door. She kind of wanted to go out there and figure out what on earth was going on, but at the same time she kind of didn’t want to have that conversation in public.

“You’re back! Good.” Peggy’s cousin, again. Angie frowned. Come to think of it, he even kind of _sounded_ like Howard Stark. “Uh, you know Helen? Helen, my cousin Peggy.”

Angie folded a corner to mark her place and put the book down. She leaned out into the hall just in time to hear Peggy’s door slam and Peggy’s muffled voice say, “You are disgusting!”

The rest of it was lost to angry mumbling and what sounded like contrition, and what Angie wouldn’t give to corner Peggy and get the whole story out of her. Helen looked like she’d gotten away with something good, and raised her eyebrows when Angie made a face.

“Well?” Angie prompted impatiently.

“ _Well_ ,” Helen told her, “if he knocks on your door and asks to borrow an egg ‘cuz Peggy’s making cookies later, let him in and tell him only if he’s nice, on account of it being your last one.”

She winked and disappeared back into her room, and Angie leaned on her door jamb. 

“Whoa, boy,” she muttered to herself. She’d always known Helen was a real go-getter, but that was one she had to remember for later. It was a shame that hadn’t been what she was asking about.

Still, she’d get a chance at Peggy in just a bit. It was dinner soon, and after Miriam had given Peggy a personal escort to her room right before Lorraine’s tryst had been interrupted, Peggy couldn’t afford to get Miriam’s hackles up any higher. Angie had heard about it from Sarah, of all people, and if Sarah knew about it then everybody knew about it. And if Miriam got wind of anything fishy and came snooping…

Well, Peggy’s cousin wasn’t exactly being subtle about anything, was he? Angie kept an eye on the clock and half-read her book. Try as she might, she just couldn’t care much about Amber’s fictional social-climbing with this much real intrigue swirling around her. She gave them as long as she could before Peggy would be late for dinner, then broke down and went to get her. Angie put on her best smile and knocked firmly on Peggy’s door, rapping so sharply her knuckles hurt.

“Peggy!” she called.

No answer, except for the murmur of quarreling voices and the shuffling of at least two people on the other side. At this rate, she could hear that Peggy had snuck in a circus, and Angie would have believed it.

“Peggy! Are you in there?” she demanded. 

She knew darn well Peggy was, but if she got loud enough she knew Peggy would have to come out. It wasn’t that Angie couldn’t get it, in if came down to it. She’d learned how to pick locks from a girl who’d really been in the circus. The knife-thrower’s assistant had been good enough to be a magician on her own, but it had turned out it was hard to sell tickets to a show where a lady was pulling the rabbits out of the hat herself. She’d been happy to do private performances for the ladies-only club Angie had met her at, though, and they’d gotten together after one of her shows. Rhonda had been tickled pink by how quick Angie had been able to undo a padlock, but she got the feeling Peggy might not be so happy about it right here and right now.

“Uh, actually Angie, I’m feeling a little under the weather,” came the shouted response.

“Peg, are you sure? You need pepto?” Angie didn’t even blush about laying it on like that. Peggy was faking a little on account of hiding her cousin, but Angie’d learned a trick or two from her grandmother about guilting people into getting a move on. She wasn’t going to be put off that easy.

“Coming!”

“I bet,” Angie chuckled to herself.

The door opened just enough for Peggy to slip out, and she shot a plain venomous look back into the apartment right before she closed it. Angie gave her a lopsided smile and offered her arm. There was no way on earth the guy was Peggy’s man, not after that glare. Peggy turned a warm smile on her and seemed to relax when she slipped her arm through Angie’s.

“Sorry. Things have been...strange, lately,” Peggy sighed.

“Tell me about it,” Angie laughed. “Lorraine and Helen getting a guy up here one right after the other? Next thing you know, cats and dogs’ll be getting on like a house on fire.”

Peggy flushed and gave her a sharp look, and Angie laughed louder this time. It was hard to take that temper seriously when she wanted to kiss her so bad, and Angie thought that if anything was going to get her in trouble, it was going to be that.

“Your cousin, huh?” she asked gently.

“It’s more complicated than that, but he might as well be,” Peggy grunted. “We’ve been.” She stopped, looking for words. “Comrades in arms. For a long time now.”

Angie nodded. “So he’s a little bit of a louse, but he’s your little bit of a louse.”

Peggy grimaced like she’d bit into a lemon. “More than a little bit, but for better or worse, yes.”

“Then he’s my more than a little bit of a louse, too. How do you want to sneak him out when it’s time to go? Put him in a girdle or stuff him back in the dumbwaiter?” Angie asked.

Peggy couldn’t quite stifle a chuckle, and Angie grinned triumphantly. They smothered their smiles when they got to the dining room. No sense in getting Miriam’s dander up by seeming like they had a secret, after all. They got in line, and Angie bit her lip when Peggy started awkwardly wrapping a pair of rolls in a napkin and stuffing them in her purse. That was one of the problems with sneaking guys into the Griffith for anything more than a little R&R, she supposed. You had to feed them somehow, and you couldn’t exactly slip groceries for two past Miriam in a laundry-bag for very long without her catching on.

“These rolls keep for three days, four if it’s cold and you put ‘em out on the windowsill,” Angie said matter-of-factly. 

She brazenly shoved several into her own purse without bothering to wrap them in a napkin first. She’d never seen Peggy take more than her own meal before, which she had to wonder at. Sure, Peggy probably made decent money at the Bell, so she didn’t have to scrounge too hard, and the work was regular so she could budget and not worry too much about getting caught short on a bad week. But the hours she kept had to make it hard to get a decent meal sometimes. What was she eating if she didn’t have something squirreled away in her room? Peggy definitely hadn’t come prepared, if she was trying to sneak a whole napkin into her purse, too. Angie’s own purse was otherwise empty and had wax paper in the bottom so nothing would stain, and she’d picked the one that was a cinch to get crumbs out of and had a snap so it was less likely to open on its own or spill. 

“Glad to hear it,” Peggy stammered. She sounded apologetic and embarrassed. “I don’t often steal food.”

Angie’s eyes widened slightly, and then she remembered hearing radio reports about the rationing that had gone on in England during the worst of the war. Things had been tight for civilians stateside, sure, but they’d said it was real bad in Europe. She guessed it was kind of a sore point even now. Well, she remembered her ma scraping and scratching to feed her and her brothers and sisters after the crash sent her pop looking for work in a whole other state, and she wasn’t going to let anybody apologize for just trying to put food in a belly that was relying on them for it.

“Are you kidding? Carol once fit a whole chicken down her sweater.” Angie shot Carol an impressed smile. It had been a sight to behold, and she’d been a little envious of it.

“My mom knit a special chicken pocket,” Carol informed her, delighted by her accomplishment. Carol had told her about her ma a few times, and it sounded like the lady was a real firecracker. When the whole family had wound up bunking in a one-room shack, Carol’s ma had cut up newspapers to look like proper curtains and wallpaper and treated foraging trips into the woods for fruit like picnics. Peggy flushed a little, and Angie wanted to kiss her.

“And Gloria’s got a compartment in her pocketbook that can fit a cup of gravy.”

Gloria nodded proudly, her mouth full of food. Dottie opened Gloria’s purse with a little gasp of delight.

“Well, would you look at that!” Her crisp blond curls bounced as she shook her head in wonder.

“Uh, I’m going to eat in my room,” Peggy said quickly, looking around at the number of girls who’d been dragged into the conversation. Angie winced sympathetically and wished she’d thought that one through a little bit more. “I have the last five pages of the new Agatha Christie. Good night.”

Angie nodded and bit off a chunk of roll. Whatever was going on that Peggy had to put the guy up in her room, they couldn’t talk about it in the middle of the dining hall.

“Could you make me one of those that holds pickles?” Dottie asked Gloria. 

Gloria thought about it for a second, clearly planning out how she’d have to modify it, before nodding enthusiastically. Angie watched Peggy go with a pang, but she couldn’t help getting sucked into the grand retelling of the original chicken-pocket caper once Carol sat down on the other side of the table from Gloria and Dottie.


End file.
